Still, despite his lack of expertise, even Ruecker can’t deny how the latest innovations have enhanced his job in his 35th season as a head coach.

This season, Tigard signed up for Hudl, a service that allows teams to catalog video of games and practices online. Accessing the secure site, coaches can analyze and edit video, make notations and e-mail the clips to players. They also can exchange game footage with other teams that subscribe to the service.

“All the young guys on my staff are really excited about it. I’m still trying,” Ruecker said. “It has wonderful capabilities. The coaches have been playing with it all summer long, taking game films and putting them on to Hudl.”

More than 100 Oregon high schools – and 6,000 across the country – subscribe to Hudl. The company, which began at the University of Nebraska in 2006, doubled its client base in July when it bought out Digital Sports Video, a competitor that had become a popular choice among Oregon schools.

Nebraska was the first team to use Hudl in 2007 and the New York Jets became the company’s first NFL client in 2008. Nine schools in the Pacific-12 Conference use Hudl, including Oregon, which signed up last year, and Oregon State, which joined this year.

Hudl charges high schools $800 per season for the full service, or $200 for video exchange only.

“It adds a lot of value,” said Sunset coach Faustin Riley, who started using the service last year. “There are a lot of different things we can do with it. For what they give you, it’s very reasonable.”

Ruecker said the service allows for more focused instruction.

“Our inside linebackers coach, he can put 10 plays on a script, make notes that kids can read, and send it to all the inside linebackers,” Ruecker said. “Our kids can watch film that is pertinent to them. It’s a great learning tool.”

Ruecker said it also is useful in training youth coaches, some of whom have a limited football background.

“They can learn the plays by watching this stuff,” Ruecker said. “You can go through and check, ‘OK, I want all of the draw plays,’ or ‘I want all of the short passing game,’ so that we can teach our offense through our youth coaches.”

For years, coaches have burned DVDs of game video to distribute to their players. Those days may be numbered.

“One of our goals is to kill the DVD,” said David Graff, Hudl’s chief executive officer. “Any high school that is still using DVDs will talk about how much they dislike that just because it’s so time-consuming and clunky. DVDs are fine when you’re watching a full-length movie and you’re not doing a lot of fast-forwarding and rewinding, but with football, it’s the exact opposite.”

Coaches using the service no longer have to sort through game video to create highlight DVDs of their players for recruiting purposes. Players can log into the system and do it themselves.

“It’s so nice for coaches because the kids know where those plays are and they can go find them,” Hillsboro coach Ken Ingram said. “Now if a school calls me and wants film on somebody, I can e-mail them a link and they can watch that film. If a kid has put together a highlight, it’s automatically sent with the game film I’m sending.”

Graff envisions Hudl.com as a hub for recruiting.

“We want to make it real easy for verified recruiters to go in there and find players who can play at their level,” Graff said.

Hudl, with clients in 17 sports, is working to stay on the cutting edge. Last year, it unveiled full support for high definition video. In the past year, it has launched applications for the iPad and Android phone.

Graff said that on Aug. 27, the Sunday following the first high school games, a record 7,700 coaches were on Hudl.com at the same time. The site streamed more than 40 million clips that weekend.

It has quickly become indispensable for some coaches. It’s already growing on Ruecker, who is becoming more adept at using it.

“I’m not even in the playing field compared to my assistant coaches who are in their 20s and 30s,” he said. “But it is very neat.”